1.) The Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

2.) On December 23, 1950, when the U.S. signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement with Vietnam, France, Cambodia and Laos.

3.) Casualties among Americans were 55,567 killed and another 1000 missing in action. If you thought "casualties" meant just Americans you were wrong. It is estimated that 1.6 million Vietnamese lost their lives in the conflict.

4.) The sisters Trung led a successful anti-Chinese rebellion in 39 A.D. and the Tay-Son rebellion (1771) also ousted Chinese rule. These rebellions illustrate both the long history of peasant activism and independence from China, making a mockery of the U.S. assertion that the Vietnamese have always been under Chinese control.

5.) The French first landed in Vietnam in the 1860s, but they did not manage to wipe out the last remnants of major resistance until 1885.

6.) The French stole land from the peasants and gave it to a small, new class of absentee landlords, some French, some wealthy Vietnamese. In addition, they slapped huge taxes on the peasants, who were already hurt by paying rent for land they had once owned. To survive, many peasants had to sell their children as servants to the wealthy.

7.) The Vietnamese Declaration is nearly a word-for-word copy of the American Declaration of Independence.

8.) 30,000.

9.) Very little, beyond the latitudes they inhabit and the way they pronounce three consonant sounds. Language differences are tantamount to those of a person from Atlanta and one from Boston. Racial and religious characteristics among the ethnic Vietnamese, who comprise some 85 per cent of the country's population, are virtually undifferentiated. Tribal minorities, who generally inhabit the interior highlands in both the North and South, show a wide diversity of language and culture.

10.) The NLF was officially founded on December 20, 1960.

11.) On February 12, 1955, as advisers.

12.) 550,000 in 1968-69.

13.) The puppet army, which raised troops through conscription, numbered one million men by 1973. The puppet air force, lavishly equipped with U.S. warplanes, was the third or fourth largest in the world.

14.) The NLF only rarely employed assassination, and then only against ranking agents of the puppet regime or members of its feared secret police. In large measure, support for the NLF in areas it controlled emerged because it carried out an extensive and democratic program of land reform.

15.) A U.S. machine gun, mounted on a helicopter or airplane, capable of shooting 2400 bullets per minute.